Pan Ramajay 2012 kickoff

I'm at it again. The third annual Pan Ramajay steel drum festival is underway. I am glad to be taking part in this event for my second year. This year, I'm going to play with the advanced band. I'm sure I'll have my hands full. I have two of the charts for the advanced band so far, and they are more challenging as expected.

We are joined once again by the same group of faculty members. This group of instructors are excellent and do a great job of engaging the students and teaching musicality. The staff are pictured below (left to right) Tom Miller, Ray Holman, Don Prorak, Alan Lightner, Jim Munzenrider, and Rick Henson.




Things got started off with orientation, an ice cream social, and them a combined band rehearsal. The rehearsal is for the chart we will won't play again until sound check on Friday! The chart is easy, to be sure, but I ended up with an instrument that has no notes marked on it. This particular pan is a Guppy-made pan, and it sounds beautiful. The low F and C sing with such beautiful harmonics, its like a choir.




Following rehearsal, I put in an hour getting acquainted with this pan and reading through the first two charts. One chart is by Tom Miller and the other is by Don Prorak. Don's chart is going to kick my butt. I fully expect to see charts by Jim, Alan, and Ray too at some point during the week.




I'm looking forward to playing with the musicians in the advance band and plan to draw some comparisons to my experience in the intermediate band.




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Location:Denver, CO